The present invention relates to a client computer which downloads programs and data necessary for data processing from a server computer (server) via a network, an initialization processing method applied to the client computer, and a computer program product used in the client computer.
This application is based on Japanese Patent Application No. P09-216733 filed on Aug. 11, 1997, the content of which is incorporated herein by reference.
In recent years, new computer architectures called network computers are being developed instead of personal computers.
The network computer is designed to use a network. Resources such as programs and data necessary for data processing are downloaded from a server via the network. For this reason, each client computer functioning as a network computer need not have programs and data and can flexibly cope with, e.g., updating of an Operating System (OS) and application programs. As a result, total cost of ownership can be drastically reduced.
However, when the client computer is used as a mobile device, it must be connected to the network such as a public network. This results in high communication cost.
More specifically, to use the client computer in a mobile environment where the computer is disconnected to the network, the client computer must remote-access the server via a public network whenever programs and data are downloaded, or a file is updated. Consequently, the processing speed of the client computer decreases, and the communication cost increases.
As described above, a conventional client computer is unsuitable for use in the mobile environment. Using the client computer in the mobile environment, higher communication cost is required due to remote-access to the server. The processing speed decreases by the time required for remote-access.